Chapter 22: Casting Stones

Whatever explanation lay behind Feywn’s momentous decision, it was at least a relief to know that the escaped serpent was just a harmless grass snake. Accepting Olyrrwd’s assurance that the creature would find its way out of the shrine eventually and that, in the meanwhile, they would have less bother with mice and rats, Herrwn returned to the classroom, where Caelym was waiting impatiently for Olyrrwd to take him snake hunting and Labhruinn was tuning his harp in preparation for his day’s oration.

A scattering of broken strings lay strewn on the floor under Labhruinn’s stool, and another one snapped as Herrwn stepped across the threshold and into the classroom. Suppressing a sigh, he went to the cupboard to get the spare harp he kept tuned and ready, saying as he exchanged it for the sadly abused instrument that Labhruinn apologetically held out to him, “We will review the proper way to tune a harp later, but now I would like to hear you recite the saga of Penddrwn and Ethelwen, starting where we left off yesterday, just after Penddrwn has been cast down in a pit and left there to be devoured by the avaricious one-eyed giant that has been terrorizing King Derfwyn’s domain.”

As Labhruinn began, “Oh woe! Oh woe!” Herrwn winced, wishing himself in the pit with Penddrwn—who, for all his misfortunes, would have struck the correct opening chord for the right lament.

In the year and a half since he’d entered his formal apprenticeship, Labhruinn had, by dint of sweating concentration and laborious practice, managed to learn the last of the dances and chants required for entry into the lowest rank of the priesthood and had, in addition, demonstrated satisfactory competence in the least demanding of his training requisites, which was participation in the shrine’s Low Council.

The Low Council was held in a hall on the lowest level of the shrine and was attended by whatever priests or priestesses were willing to sit through hours of listening to laborers laying out their complaints about each other. As the shrine’s chief priest, Herrwn presided over the Low Council. As his disciple, Labhruinn was required to sit next to him in respectful silence, nodding in agreement with his pronouncements and making a reasonable show of appearing interested in the long and tedious deliberations.

That Labhruinn actually paid attention to what was being said was something that Herrwn discovered by chance. On a whim, he remained in his place after the council ended and called on Labhruinn to “render his judgment” over one of the more contentious of the disputes they had just heard, and—much to his surprise—he found himself nodding in genuine approval at the fair and judicious answer he received.

The main responsibility of an assistant bard, however, was to speak the lines of the minor characters and to pluck or strum his harp at times in the narrative where a particular unison with or dissonance from chords being played by the chief bard was needed. To do that, Labhruinn had to master all nine of the great sagas, along with their accompanying odes and songs.

The songs were not an insurmountable problem. Labhruinn could actually sing most of them quite well—especially those that required a strong baritone voice.

The spoken lines were his downfall.

Listening to Labhruinn stumble from one mangled verse to the next, Herrwn could not help but recall Rhedwyn’s flawless delivery. And while Rhedwyn was no longer in the classroom, Caelym was.

Gifted with Rhedwyn’s uncanny ability to recall and repeat the most convoluted stories on a single hearing, Caelym had quickly surpassed Labhruinn—yet, for better or for worse, the two had become fast friends and Caelym had taken it upon himself to fill in the gaps in Labhruinn’s orations.

Recalling one particularly beleaguered day in the fall of the second year of Caelym’s training, Herrwn seemed to hear Labhruinn’s rumbling baritone alternating with Caelym’s shrill soprano.

“And so the goddess, hmmm (Eiriawen!) Eiriawen reached out her snow-white hand to touch … ahh … (Araddwn’s) Araddwn’s cheek (brow) brow as he lay wounded (no, dying!) no, dying … er, I mean, dying at her feet …”

Herrwn had sternly reminded Caelym that he should be attending to his own lesson and told Labhruinn to start from the beginning, but as Labhruinn was opening his mouth to comply, Caelym jumped to his feet, crying out, “It’s my turn!”

Waving his hazel study stick like a sword, he began, “I, Aiddan, Son of Araddwn …” going on to vow vengeance against Hergest, the giant king, in as menacing a voice as a seven-year-old with missing front teeth was capable.

Labhruinn laughed a deep, throaty laugh that turned into a growl as he rose to play the part of the giant, and before Herrwn could object, the battle broke out in full force. Stools were piled up into tottering mountain peaks, rugs became lakes roiling with water monsters, and tables were turned on their side to be fortress walls as the mock war raged—only ending when Labhruinn fell to his knees and died a wild and convulsing death to the sound of Caelym’s piping cheers.

When he was finally able to make himself heard, Herrwn chided them both, saying, “I see you have finished learning what I have to teach you, so now you may go outside to play games with the sheepherders’ children.”

That was the same rebuke his father had once used when his own attention had wandered off from his lessons, and it had served its purpose of shaming him into redoubled diligence and dedication. Labhruinn and Caelym, however, took him at his word, and he had to step out of the way to avoid being knocked over as the two dashed out the door together.

It was only mid-afternoon, but Herrwn felt drained. He left the room’s clutter for Benyon to put right and went to the healing chamber to find Olyrrwd, hoping he’d be willing to come on a restorative walk along the lakeshore.

Not only was Olyrrwd willing, he was even more in need of a break than Herrwn. And as it turned out, he was no happier with Moelwyn than Herrwn was with Labhruinn.

Being so much taller, Herrwn usually had to adjust his stride so he didn’t outpace Olyrrwd, but that day he was hard-pressed to keep up—and was soon too out of breath to do more than puff in sympathetic gasps that Olyrrwd did not seem to notice as he fumed, “Seeing people vomit makes him feel ill himself! Fevers frighten him since they could be catching! Can I ask him to lance a simple boil? Not if there’s going to be pus! He doesn’t like pus! Take care of a cough? Not if there’s phlegm! He doesn’t like phlegm either—especially not green phlegm! Blood, if there’s not too much of it and it doesn’t get on his sleeves, is all right, but it upsets him to have people scream when he splints their broken bones—or to have them die after he’s given them a perfectly brewed potion!”

They were halfway around the lake before Olyrrwd finally stopped ranting, either out of breath or too disgruntled to go on. He plopped down on the bank, picked up a round, flat stone, and sent it skipping across the surface of the lake.

The stone skimmed across the water, touching down and rising up again a dozen times before it came down for a last time and sank out of sight.

“Twelve!” Olyrrwd said in a voice that seemed to be coming from somewhere very far away. “I have twelve years left!”

Then, sounding resolved and more like himself, he said, “Caelym will need to be ready! In twelve years, he will be old enough.”

Ignoring Herrwn’s objection—“You are not an oracle, and skipping stones is not augury!”—Olyrrwd grumbled, “I’d better get back before some inconsiderate sick person comes to the healing chamber and starts spewing in front of Moelwyn.” He pushed himself up and started toward the shrine, walking with a limp that Herrwn hadn’t noticed before.